Category: Ace Attorney

I enjoyed David E. Kelley’s legal “dramedy” Boston Legal, despite that fact it could often go off the rails of what was reasonable legal procedure, (particularly courtroom conduct) because it was goofy and funny. Ace Attorney is also goofy and funny, but I find myself unable to constantly overlook its cavalier attitude toward the sacred institution of the law.

Mayoi’s trial is a damned free-for-all from the start, when Mitsurugi Reiji calls a witness in the middle of his opening statement, before Naruhodo even gets a chance to say his part. The witness is Det. Itonokogiri, whose testimony is so full of holes a mouse could mistake it for cheese.

Oh, and the cheese is laid on thick here, when after Naruhodo rather easily exposes the good detective’s inconsistencies, Mitsurugi changes “died instantly” to “died pretty much instantly.” That said, he also makes the mistake of calling another unreliable witness to the stand.

This witness is apparently meant to titillate the men in the courtroom and little else, while Mitsurugi is concerned only with theories he can prove with facts in the courtroom, regardless of whether those theories point the finger at the entirely wrong person, i.e. Mayoi. It’s all rigged!

Wen Naruhodo breaks the pink bombshell (her transition sex kitten to fist-pounding harridan is hilariously abrupt) and Mitsurugi calls for an adjournment so he can go over all the evidence Naruhodo keeps pulling out of his pockets (real professional, that!) things get even more ridiculous, when Naruhodo tracks down the witness’s boss.

Konaka Masaru is a grotesque joke of a character, with his flamboyant wardrobe, goofy office, and constant use of Bad English in his speech. This guy also happens to be the kingpin of a massive empire of blackmail at every level of society with the front of an IT company.

He also has the motive to be Chihiro’s true killer, since she’d been investigating him for years. And with one phone call, Konaka gets Haruhodo arrested as the new prime suspect in her murder. Hwhaa?

With lawyers going around acting like detectives, detectives acting like judges, and absurd circus trials with no semblance of order, this is a dark, fallen, poorly-animated world, and I feel bad for anyone with pure justice in their heart who has to live in it. Fortunately, I don’t, and so I’m checking out.

When he arrives for a dinner date with Chihiro and her sister, Naruhodo finds Chihiro dead, the sister cowering in the corner, and the Thinker clock and broken glass strewn around the floor. Just then, the police burst in, led by Detective Itonokogiri Keisuke, and the sister Mayoi (Yuuki Aoi) ends up locked in jail, suspected of murdering Chihiro.

So Naruhodo has another mystery on his hands (including who called those cops so fast!) despite the fact he is a defense lawyer, not a detective. In Law & Order, you have two separate groups doing those two jobs, but Naruhodo does it all, and quite haphazardly.

What he isn’t—at least not initially—is Mayoi’s defender. That job falls to some mustachioed bigwig lawyer Chihiro told Mayoi to contact if she ever got in trouble. He seems willing to take on the case…until the prosecutor is announced: the intimidating, Undefeated Mitsurugi Reiji; he of the incredibly tacky office. Little too much crimson there, sport?

Detective-wise, Naruhodo finds Mayoi’s phone with her last conversation with Chihiro recorded on it (for some reason), and gets the actual detective (who seems a bit of a dolt) to reveal the name of his witness, the hotel room of which Naruhodo visits for a hot minute (and finds a suspicious bedazzled screwdriver).

Anywho, virtually no one wants to defend poor Mayoi now that Mitsurugi is the prosecutor, so Naruhodo searches his soul and determines despite his personal ties to the murder victim and the fact it’s completely improper, he’ll be the one to defend her.

That’s fine with Mayoi, because that’s what she wants too after noticing how hard he worked to find her a replacement for Mustache, getting soaked in the rain and covered in sakura petals. They both have a cute little flirtation in which they ask at the same time, then both bump their heads on the glass.

So now we’re set up for Naruhodo’s second and by far most important case of his life, and Mitsurugi isn’t going to go easy on the rookie. We still know little of the case but small clues here and there, but I wonder if Mayoi’s spirit medium training will come into play.

What isn’t in doubt at all (at least for me) is that Mayoi will be exonerated and Mitsurugi will be handed his first loss. I’m willing to swim in this clunky sea of mediocre animation at least one more week to see how he pulls it off!

Ace Attorney is a part-mystery, part-courtroom drama, part-comedy that wears its heart on its sleeve and shoots from the hip. It’s a super-straightforward show, with a clear and concise structure so far:

Victim murdered (by a talking Rodin’s The Thinker!);

Trial of wrongly accused (his childhood friend Yahari) begins;

Rookie defense attorney Naruhodo Ryuuchi pokes holes in the story of the prosecution’s witness and successfully accuses the witness of doing the deed, exonerating Yahari;

Another victim is murdered.

Enjoyment of this show is in the purity of that structure, as well as the delicious details. There are a lot of gags in this episode, despite it starting with a woman getting her head stoved in by a statuette.

Not all of the gags hit, but many do, and the trial moves swiftly and purposefully as Ryuuchi, backed up by his stunning boss Ayasato Chihiro, determines the key to saving his friend and client from the slammer is the murder weapon and the time it reports, which is two—really fourteen—hours off after accompanying victim to New York City.

Ryuuchi is fueled not just by the support of Chihiro, but by the memory of when Yahari was once his advocate in a classroom trial years ago. It’s never in doubt that Yahari isn’t the culprit, because we witness Yamano do the deed in the cold open.

About Yamano and the prosecution: they sure made things easy for Ryuuchi! I mean, yeah, as a rookie he still sweated when they continually countered his objections with more “facts”, but once he had something they couldn’t counter, Yamano literally explodes into somebody who isnot only a credible witness by any means, but also a highly suspicious suspect.

Being not too far removed from Food Wars, I enjoyed the battle-like fever pitch of the trial, with points and objections being fired around like projectile weapons, and gusts of wind knocking people off their feet. It’s all very absurd and fun.

There’s also an absurdity in the sheer specificity of that darned murder weapon. I mean, how the heck did this Yahari guy have the technical wherewithal to construct not one but two talking Thinker clocks? Why The Thinker?

Why a clock? The show doesn’t really care about those details…and at the end of the day, neither do I, but it is pretty weird nonetheless, and makes me wonder what other strange, very specific objects this show can come up with.

This episode also succeeded on a introductory level, telling us everything we needed to know, but still continuing on its purposeful course of holding and resolving a murder trial, without overwhelming us with characters not pertinent to that trial.

My only “objections”? Well, the mystery isn’t all that compelling, and the show itself is pretty crude-looking, with rather stiff (if generally attractive) character design. I’m also a bit miffed they killed off Chihiro in the first episode, but I’m sure the show had it’s reasons, and I look forward to hearing its case next week…even if I can’t strongly recommend this show.